This research project examines various aspects of urban society and culture among Jews in large cities across the Russian empire such as Lodz, Odessa and Warsaw as well as medium sized centers such as Bialystok and Vilna between the years 1861-1914. In addition to looking at the process of urbanization, this study also focuses on the many new cultural organizations and public institutions that arose during the time period. Another key part of this project is an examination of how these changes in the scope and nature of urban society and culture impacted relations between Jews and non-Jews. During my month-long tenure as a Short-Term Travel Grant research fellow, I conducted extensive research at different archival holdings and library collections in Poland. As a result, I not only collected material critical to writing a manuscript on this topic but also have a much better idea of what material is available and how the extant source material will affect the ways that this project can and should develop.
Scott Ury, of Tel Aviv University, was a 2010-2011 Short-Term Travel Grants (STG) [9] fellow.
